Pacman: classic but catchy game!

Hi! We are Amaranta and Marta and in this post we'll share with you one game that we have created in the last session of ICT: Pacman! This game is well known but in this version it becomes also a quiz. In this case, the questions are about JOBS! Will you be able to guess the answer? How much score will you get? Watch out because little ghosts are following you. Before presenting our activity, here it is a Google Drive presentation about the game and things that you should take into account when introducing games in class.

Target audience: 4th grade

Placement in curriculum: English + ICT

School course: Second semester

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: This activity offers an opportunity to enhance both lower- and higher-order thinking skills.

Lower order thinking skills.

• Level I-II: Remembering and identifying: This activity provides an opportunity to review the vocabulary and definitions related to jobs.

Higher order thinking skills.

• Level VI: Creating (create new products). The activity gives the students the opportunity to add some definitions of jobs.

Aims:

• To be able to use Pacman.
• To be able to identify jobs by their definitions.
• To be able to add questions about jobs by defining them.

Competences involved:

• Linguistic and audio-visual.
• Information handling and digital competence.
• Autonomy, initiative and decision taking.
• Knowledge and interaction with the world.

Grouping: This activity will be carried out individually or in pairs (let them choose).

Procedure of the activity:

1) Let students decide if they want to play individually or in pairs.

2) Send them the link to play. Explain them that they will play Pacman but only if they guess the correct answer! In addition, that they cannot play during a long time unless they answer a specific amount of questions in a row.

3) They will also have to write their names to appear on the leaderscore.
4) Finally, students will have to create three questions about by defining them, following the example.

Materials required: Computer.

Class management

• The teacher will walk around the classroom, checking that students are doing the task proposed and observing their needs in order to help them whenever it is necessary.
• We believe that it is important for the teacher to have used the app before and have tried to create a game to foresee the problems that can arise.

Added value through ICT

• Visual support, engaging tool.
• It involves a challenge (reviewing definition, construct questions,…).
• This game is ideal for reviewing content and assessing children in a more motivational way.
• Develop digital competence.

Trouble-shooting

• Limit the time that they can play to Pacman in order to focus their attention in the content.

Assessment:

The teacher will assess if the aims of the activity are fulfilled taking into account the following assessment criteria:

• Is he/she able to identify jobs by their definitions?
• Is he/she able to create three questions of jobs?

Classtools web: http://www.classtools.net/

Guess the job game: http://www.classtools.net/pac/201604_WhHGDN  

Do you want more games?: Visit ESL GAMES + and enjoy with your students

KAHOOT: simple, attractive and incredibly worth it!

Hello digital teachers, I’m Amaranta and in this post I will like to talk about one of my favourites educational programs to use it at classroom with children or adults of any age. Do you know Kahoot? Kahoot is an App that allows you to learn by playing individually or collaboratively. Basically it consist on creating a quiz on any subject and in any language, which can then be shared with individuals or groups or even made public. If you project your Kahoot in class, your students can do it in real time, answering each from their device, whether a laptop, a tablet or a smartphone. Also, you can see who is winning in terms of successes and speed of response at all times, giving them additional motivation.Imagine the possibilities offered by this application when assessing learning!

The functioning of the app is quite easy. For busy teachers is a great tool because it does not involve too much time and also allows children to become familiar with it easily. I’ve thought that would be really useful for you to have a clearer idea about how it works so here is a presentation that I found with all the information explained in detail.

Kahoot how to from Marsha Osburn

Main features:

• Free
• Easy to use
• You can do it whether a quiz, discussion or survey
• Different electronic devices: Computer, smartphone, ipad...
• Team and individual mode
• Challenging and motivational
• Any topic, any age
• Personalized
• Save it as a pdf as well

My experience with Kahoot (from my Internship report). Hope you like it!

During my last internship in an immersion school, I decided to create a Kahoot Quiz which I believe is a brilliant ICT tool to help students review the content while having fun and using something that they love: Ipads. took advantage from the fact that they had almost an Ipad per child so I did not miss this unique opportunity. I hardly had to explain the functioning because children understood it it perfectly with just watching it for seconds. I created some questions about fractions, irregular verbs, forces, timetables, past simple...etc. that I combined with colourful photographs that I took from the Internet or from the school website to make questions more closer to them. I also tried to use teacher’s or student’s names as well. For this activity, I let them chose if they wanted to go in pairs or individually. As I mentioned, they loved feeling challenged so they were absolutely engaged in the activity to the point that they constantly wanted to repeat it! I must say we made a lot of noise squealing with joy but, is not that noise the evidence that something special is happening?

ACTIVITY

Target audience: 4th grade of primary

Placement in curriculum: Science (CLIL)

Topic: materials and their properties: wax, leather, plastic, glass,stone...hard, rigid, soft, elastic...

School course: Third trimester

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy:

• Higher order thinking skills.
• Level VI: Creating (create new products or points of view). The activity gives the students the opportunity to create a piece of text to talk about their holidays.

This game will be placed at the end of the third term. My purpose is to make students create their own quiz to review the content and language learnt before about an specific topic: the materials and their properties. By doing this activity, children will be able to formulate questions as well as get to know the difference and similarities between the multiple choice options when it comes to select the correct one.

Aims:

1. To be able to use Kahoot.it app
2. To make questions about what things are made of? taking into account question grammar structures.
3. To be able to work in cooperative groups

Grouping and roles

• Slip up the whole group in groups of four
• Give them roles but all of them have to participate and be involved when creating the questions.
• Time controller: will be in charge of controlling the time. They will have 30 minutes
• Image searcher: will be in charge of looking for images related to each question.
• Options thinker: will be in charge of thinking of four different options for each question.
• Typer: will be in charge of typing the questions in the ipad once they have been corrected and checked by the teacher and the whole group.
• English policeman: in charge of making sure that all the members use English.
• Roles will be changeable each turn.

Competences involved

• Linguistic and audio-visual: because pupils have to create questions and add images to do a Kahoot quiz.
• Information handling and digital competence: in order to do the task, they have to interact and know the app to use it.
• Autonomy, initiative and decision taking: because they are creating a tool to assess their own classmates knowledge (quiz)
• Social and civic: because children have to work in teams and listen to others opinions and suggestions.
• Knowledge and interaction with the world: this activity will be about the materials and the properties that we can find in things that surrounded us.

Materials required

• Ipad
• Paper and pen if they need it

Development

Context: Children have been learning about the materials and their properties in s Kahoot will be useful to assess the vocabulary they have learnt.

1. Ask children to make groups of five and give them roles. Make sure they understand that roles will change while doing the task.
2. Create one account so all children can do the same kahoot.
3. Show children a kahoot quiz made by you so they will know exactly what their are supposed to do and the final result Get ready your devices and take advantage of the students that already know how to use it (Experts ICT) Give them time to get familiarized with it. Explain the instructions carefully or show them a power point with the instructions, you will see they will get it faster!
4. Later on, children will have to make questions, statement, unfinished sentences about the topic: What things are made of? Which is this material? Is this strong/soft/elastic? This is made of….Give them examples to help them with the language.
5. Give them time to type their questions and show you to check the spelling and the grammar structures. Make sure they have selected the right option to avoid problems while playing.
6. Play all together and enjoy!

Here you have a short example of the type of questions they can make

Class management                       

Following the tips that we have learnt in the ICT lessons, we would ask students to set Ipad aside when they didn’t need them to avoid classroom management problems. When we are telling them the instructions of the activity, we would say “Ipads facing at me”, so we can make sure that they pay attention and don’t get distracted. Moreover, we would ask students for assistance if we need their help or we get stuck (Experts TIC) In addition, at random points during the session, we will ask students to flip their screens of the Ipads so we could check that they are doing the task proposed. We believe that it is always important for the teacher to have used the app before and have tried to create a game to foresee the problems that can arise.

4 skills

Reading: teacher and students need to read and understand the questions and the options	Listening: Interaction with others. One can read the questions and others have to listen to it.
Speaking: Importance in the spontaneous language: Press it, the red one, the triangle, try again, we are right, etc.	Writing: Making the questions, grammar structures.

Added value through ICT

• Visual support
• Creative and attractive tool
• Involves a challenge (time, multiple options, competition and cooperation…)
• Ideal for reviewing content, assessing children and make them create questions in a more motivational context (not only making them write it down)
• Develop digital competence as well as linguistic and audiovisual.
• Involves other kind of language (expand it): winners, play, score, points, you are on the top!, lose, shapes, colours...

Trouble-shooting - possible problems

• So much competition. Do it in pairs depending on your teaching style of let them choose how they want to play. Some kids get really upset if they lose.
• Internet connection, be sure that sometimes it doesn’t work perfectly and you have to deal with the delay of some questions.

Assessment Grid

To be able to use Kahoot.it app	-Does he/she know how to add an image? -Does he/she how to choose the correct option? -Does he/she know to add questions? -Does he/she know how the control the time for each question? -Does he/she know how to edit it?
To make questions about what things are made of? taking into account question grammar structures.	-Is he/she able to make a question using the auxiliary verb? -Is he/she able to create questions using the main structure: Is this made of…? Which material is this made of…?
To be able to work in cooperative groups	-Is he/she able to listen actively to the members of the group? -Is he/she able to give ideas/suggestions… -Is he/she able to respect the roles?

Bitsboard is a must!

Hello again!

We are Marta and Amaranta and we will like to talk about ipads, the new trendy electronic devices in classrooms. In our context, almost all children know what an Ipad is and how to use it without us having to explain how it works detaily. However, it is true that teachers can help them to get to know more advanced skills that this tool can offer us. The world of apps has grown considerably for the past five years and currently teachers are lucky to have a plenty of online resources that enable students to review and learn new content, play games in groups, take up new linguistic activities, save time...etc as well as develop their digital competence!

In this post we would like to present you an amazing app we have discovered recently called: BitsBoard, the top 5 education game in the US app Store. Bitsboard is a free app for Ipads that includes a variety of different mini games -such as flashcards, matching and multiple choice games (called “photo touch”) and some others where students have to create words (“called word builder”)- on subjects at different levels of difficulty. This is a simple app, easy to deal with and, consequently, it can be used by children of any level, from ages 4 and up. In addition, teachers and students can also create and customize their own games, taking advantage of the available templates of “boards”, in order to use them as teaching tools.  

BitsBoard APP

ACTIVITY:

Target audience: Initial level of primary education (2nd year).

Bloom Taxonomy: (LOTS) Identify,remember, understand

Placement in curriculum: music (CLIL)

Aims of the game:

• To be able to learn the names of 12 instruments and their spelling.
• To be able to classify 12 instruments in their corresponding families (wind, string and percussion).
• To be able to use Bitsboard app.

Language:

• Vocabulary related to musical instruments: piano, guitar, violin, drum, harmonica, xylophone, maracas, accordion, flute, recorder, harp, clarinet.
• Expressions: belongs to, go together.
• Spontaneous language used by students in class.

Competences involved:

• Linguistic and audio-visual: through that sequence of activities, students will they develop the reading and the listening skills. All the activities have the option to include sound hints that say clearly the names of the instruments whenever you need it. In addition, one of the aims of these activities is to have an idea of the spelling .
• Musical: in these games students are learning some musical instruments that belong to the wind, string and to the percussion families.
• Digital: students have to be able to use Bitsboard in their Ipads.

Development:

• In order to detect our learner’s previous knowledge about the topic, we will carry out a “review game” (called like that) from Bitsboard. There is an image of one musical instrument and students will try to remember its name. Then, they will click on “tap to see the answer” and will self-assess their previous knowledge by answering the question: “How well did you know this?” and the possible answers are “not well”, “somewhat” and “very well”. Consequently, we could see what is the level of the class in this topic and students could review and acquire the vocabulary.
  
  

  

  Check previous knowledge
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Then, we will play a game named “Pop Quiz” to learn it better and review the names of the 12 musical instruments and focus also the attention on their spelling. This game consists of a multiple choice where it appears an image of an instrument and, below, two or more written names of instruments. 
  
  Afterwards, next step will consist of classifying every instrument in his family. For that, we will play a game called “Related items”, in which students have to drag an instrument next to another from the same family (p.e., the violin and the guitar belong to the wind family).
  Afterwards, next step will consist of classifying every instrument in his family. For that, we will play a game called “Related items”, in which students have to drag an instrument next to another from the same family (p.e., the violin and the guitar belong to the wind family).

  

  Related Items

  

                        Pop Quiz: What do you think?

Finally, to assess if students have achieved the objectives established, we will put into practise a game called “True or False” in which students will work both on the names of the instruments and on the spelling. The game is the following: it appears the picture of an instruments and below one name written. The student has to decide if the text matches with the image and, also, if the text is well written. In case both things are good, they click on the tick (true) but if one of those things is wrong, they click the cross (false).  We will give them more than one opportunity to do so they can practise it before the definitive one.

                  

Assessment: Is "Meracas" well written?

Feedback provided by Bitsboard: every time a child does an activity correctly, he/she receives a positive feedback comment (orally), such as “Well done!, “perfect”, “wonderful!”, etc.

Fast finishers students: Taking into account that Bitsboard offers much more minigames, the fastests students can explore all of them and play freely whatever game they want related to musical instruments.  

Classroom organisation:

Students will have the option to play the first three games individually or in pairs. Despite the fact they choose to play in pairs, each student will use his own Ipad, but they will discuss the answer all together first. It is important to make them remember that all the members of the group or pairs need to touch the ipad and select an option so they can alternate turns. The last activity, as it is the assessment, will be played individually.

Classroom management:

Following the tips that we have learnt in the ICT lessons, we would ask students to set Ipad aside when they didn’t need them to avoid classroom management problems. When we are telling them the instructions of the activity, we would say “Ipads facing at me”, so we can make sure that they pay attention and don’t get distracted. Moreover, we would ask students for assistance if we need their help or we get stuck (Experts TIC) In addition, at random points during the session, we will ask students to flip their screens of the Ipads so we could check that they are doing the task proposed. We believe that it is always important for the teacher to have used the app before and have tried to create a game to foresee the problems that can arise.

Added value through ICT

• Gives extra motivation for children. Children love using Ipads and show other kids their digital skills.
• Visual support that help them memorize better the vocabulary, good for different learning styles.
• Save time.
• Can be saved and repeated whenever they want.